10 Things I Can See From Here

by Carrie Mac

Overview

Perfect for fans of John Green's Turtles All the Way Down and Nina LaCour's We Are Okay, this is the poignant and uplifting story of Maeve, who is dealing with anxiety while falling in love with a girl who is not afraid of anything.
 
Think positive.
Don’t worry; be happy.
Keep calm and carry on.
 
Maeve has heard it all before. She’s been struggling with severe anxiety for a long time, and as much as she wishes it was something she could just talk herself out of, it’s not. She constantly imagines the worst, composes obituaries in her head, and is always ready for things to fall apart. To add to her troubles, her mom—the only one who really gets what Maeve goes through—is leaving for six months, so Maeve will be sent to live with her dad in Vancouver.
 
Vancouver brings a slew of new worries, but Maeve finds brief moments of calm (as well as even more worries) with Salix, a local girl who doesn’t seem to worry about anything. Between her dad’s wavering sobriety, her very pregnant stepmom insisting on a home birth, and her bumbling courtship with Salix, this summer brings more catastrophes than even Maeve could have foreseen. Will she be able to navigate through all the chaos to be there for the people she loves?


An ALA Rainbow Book List selection
A Bank Street Best Book of the Year

"With Maeve, Mac delivers a character who's heartwarmingly real and sympathetic, and her story provides a much needed mirror for anxious queer girls everywhere."—Kirkus, Starred review

"This is a good companion book for other anxiety-riddled stories, such as The Shattering by Karen Healey, and Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella."—Booklist

"This hopeful offering will resonate with young people for their own lives, even if the journey is hard and takes time and patience...[a] compelling portrait of a teen’s experiences with anxiety and challenging family dynamics."—SLJ

"Mac carefully makes clear that Maeve is plenty able to find joy other places than the perfect girl and that she’s working at dealing with her own problems; the romance is therefore lovely and cozy and free from overtones of dependency. The descriptions of anxiety are true and powerful, and romance buffs will likely revel in a book celebrating deep connection."—The Bulletin

"Mac is good at showing how a dread-filled mind works... [An] affecting story.''—Publishers Weekly

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399556289
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	01/28/2020
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	659,352
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Carrie Mac is an award-winning author. She lives in East Vancouver with her two children. Learn more about Carrie and her books at CarrieMac.com and on Twitter at @CarrieMacWrites.

Read an Excerpt

Stupid Things People Say

You are not your anxiety.

Don’t worry your pretty little head.

It doesn’t matter.

Don’t exaggerate.

Why get upset about something so small?

Just put it out of your mind.

All good things. All good things.

Ignore it.

Let go and let God.

Think positive.

Move on.

Get back on the horse.

What’s the matter, honey?

If you visualize good things, good things will happen.

Manifest destiny, Maeve. Make it happen.

You be the master of your life. Take charge!

Don’t underestimate the power of positive thinking.

Keep calm and carry on.

Don’t worry; be happy.

What is there to worry about?

All the things.

Being Hit by a Train

I could easily admit that it was nicer and faster to take the train from Seattle to Vancouver. But the last time I took the train, a woman threw herself in front of it just outside Everett. None of us had any idea what was happening while the train dragged the woman along until it finally screeched to a stop, spreading out her brains and entrails along the tracks. Which I knew because I researched these things. Her name was Carol Epperly. Thirty-­six years old. Mother of two. Struggled with depression. No kidding. I read her obituary (of course), and it sounded like someone really angry wrote it. I’m guessing it was her husband, and if so, he was pissed. His name was Doug. He had a lawn-­mower repair shop in Everett. She struggled against the depression, but clearly not hard enough. That’s what it said. And at the end: Never mind a charity; please consider donating to a fund for the boys, who will only know life without their mother from now on.

I would not be taking the train again anytime soon. That one moment was all I talked about with my therapist for almost three months straight. Nancy actually told me that it was time to move on. She had never said that before. That was like admitting defeat. That was like saying I had stumped her. She had never once offered a platitude before that.

So I took the bus, which I’d taken often enough to admit that it wasn’t the worst thing, even if it was slower. Mom drove me from Port Townsend to Seattle. I started crying before the stop sign at the bottom of our road.

“Oh, Maeve, sweetheart.” She drove with her hand on my knee. “It will be okay. I know it.”

There wasn’t anything for me to say. I’d already said everything. So I cried. The mountain of tissues in my lap grew tall and teetering. I was still crying as Mom looked for a parking spot at the bus station.

I cried while she bought my ticket. I cried and cried and cried when it was time to go.

“I love you,” Mom said.

“I love you.” But I didn’t say goodbye, and neither did she. We never said goodbye when I went to Dad’s. It was our superstition. Or mine, and she just played along. No goodbyes. Especially this time.

Nancy had told me that I should take the train again so that I would realize that people don’t throw themselves in front of trains all that often. This is your horse, Nancy said. Get back on it, Maeve. Besides, Nancy told me, it was far more likely that my bus would get into a terrible crash than that another person would commit suicide by train. Which was not helpful in the least. But I just couldn’t do it. I just could not get back on the train. Not yet. Not after Carol Epperly.

You could always walk, Dad had said. Which would be kind of epic. It could be a whole coming-­of-­age spiritual experience happening right along the I-­5. Imagine that.

I didn’t want to do the train, or the bus, or walk. And there was no excuse to fly, considering how close it was, for one thing, and the litany of possible air disasters, for an­other. I just wanted to stay home. But that was not an option either. You’re too nervous, Mom said. Imagine being alone at night. You’d just sit there trembling and anxious, which you do even when I’m home. And it was true. I worried and worried and worried until I was sick. But she was going to Haiti, so I was going to Dad’s. For six months.

The wait at the border took extra long because some guy didn’t have the right papers, and they took him into a room and questioned him for half an hour while the rest of the passengers just stood around wondering what the hell was going on and I chewed my nails and thought too hard. Were they interrogating him? Was he a terrorist? Or wanted by the FBI?

He looked pretty sheepish when he came out. Everybody else looked royally annoyed. Not me, though. I’d made the mistake of surfing the internet to distract myself from the potential serial killer in the little room, and because I couldn’t help myself, I’d looked up Greyhound bus deaths.

Editorial Reviews

12/12/2016
Everyone tells Maeve that things will be fine, but they don’t know what it’s like to have an anxiety disorder, to visualize possible disasters constantly. Spending six months in Vancouver with her father and stepfamily is terrifying for nearly 17-year-old Maeve—she could die on the way, for one thing. Even after arriving safely, she finds cause for worry. Her father may be drinking again, the home birth her pregnant stepmother is planning is risky, and being around Salix—the girl she likes—is nerve-racking. But to Maeve’s surprise, Salix likes her. Even more surprising: when some of Maeve’s fears come to pass, she’s upset, but not helpless. Mac (The Way Back) is good at showing how a dread-filled mind works and how Salix, whom Maeve sees as wholly confident, also has to fight nerves. Mac’s not interested in villains: there is no evil stepmother, no homophobia. Instead, the struggles are internal, like Maeve’s anxiety and her father’s relapse, and relational, as people try to forgive and be honest with each other. The result is a low-key but affecting story. Ages 14–up. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"With Maeve, Mac delivers a character who's heartwarmingly real and sympathetic, and her story provides a much needed mirror for anxious queer girls everywhere"— Kirkus, starred review

From the Publisher

12/01/2017
Gr 9 Up—Anxiety is hard to deal with at the best of times, and Maeve deals with it on a day-to-day basis. But now, her mom and her mom's boyfriend are leaving for six months, and Maeve has to stay with her dad in Vancouver—all things that make her anxiety skyrocket. To make matters worse, her dad isn't in a good place and life seems to be falling apart all around her. There is one bright light in her life, and her name is Salix. Will Salix help keep out all of the darkness? Mac creates in Maeve a character with relatable issues for teens. The novel's title suggests that there is a list of things that surround Maeve—that she's aware of in any given moment. Throughout the narrative, though, teens will see that Maeve has so much more surrounding her that she doesn't always register, including family, love, and friendship. Throughout all of Maeve's experiences of anxiety, there is one constant theme: no matter how bad things are, Maeve always gets through them. This hopeful offering will resonate with young people for their own lives, even if the journey is hard and takes time and patience. Maeve's romance with a girl is an integrated part of a complex plot. VERDICT This compelling portrait of a teen's experiences with anxiety and challenging family dynamics is a solid choice for most realistic fiction shelves.—Rena Gibson, Ralph Ellison Library, Oklahoma City

School Library Journal

★ 2016-11-02
A white teen with severe anxiety struggles to manage her mental health and finds joy in a budding relationship with a new girlfriend. Most people worry, but Maeve has always done so to the extreme. With her severe anxiety and panic disorder, she is constantly working to balance her spiraling, catastrophizing thoughts—without the help of any medication. When her mom decides to spend six months in Haiti, Maeve is forced to move to live with her father and his family in Vancouver, disrupting her otherwise relatively stable life. In Vancouver, Maeve feels she has plenty to be anxious about: from her pregnant stepmother's home-birth plan to the possibility her father might start drinking and using again. But when already-out Maeve meets Salix, a violin-busking "friend of Dorothy," and their mutual attraction grows, she begins to find unexpected happiness in Vancouver. Mac crafts a beautifully awkward and affecting budding relationship between Maeve and Salix—one that neither miraculously cures Maeve nor leaves her entirely unchanged. With Maeve, Mac provides a realistic portrayal of the ways that anxiety can affect all relationships and permeate every aspect of life—demonstrated at times with humor through sardonic obituaries regularly composed by Maeve throughout the first-person narrative. With Maeve, Mac delivers a character who's heartwarmingly real and sympathetic, and her story provides a much needed mirror for anxious queer girls everywhere. (Fiction. 14 & up)

Kirkus Reviews